Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Fools show their annoyance at once,
    but the prudent overlook an insult.

• Proverbs 12:16

 Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

• Acts 16:16-18

The two Scriptures above are the only times the word ‘annoy’ is used in the NIV.  As for the first Scripture, if we had become annoyed too quickly, we would have missed what happened.  The second Scripture borders on the definition of ‘pester.’

The following story is absolutely true.  It illustrates how babysitting and being a parent, or grandparent, is not a job for the weak at heart.  And you must have a sense of humor.  My grandchildren are 15, 11, and 8-years-old.

Picture my son’s home.  The den is at one extreme end of the house, the living room, where the bookcase is, is in the center of the house, and the teenager’s bedroom is at the far end of the house.  I was in the den, working on something.

It was getting quiet.  I wanted to cut off the mischief before it led to cross words, pushing and shoving, or even fists flying.  Peter, after being given the definition of ‘personal space’ hundreds of times, continues to intrude until something bad happens as a result.

In the deafening silence, I yelled, “Peter!”

The eight-year-old ran into the den where I was.  “Peter, what were you doing?”

Peter mumbled something.

I asked, “Can you say that again, and this time, in English?”

“I was sharing my brother’s music.”  His brother was probably playing his bass guitar without being hooked up to the amps.

I asked, “You were stealing your brother’s music?”  How else could you interpret ‘sharing’?

“No!  I was listening to him playing music.”

I replied, “’Listening’ and ‘sharing’ are two different things.  Go do something else.  Do not pester your brother.”

Peter ran back to his brother’s room.  “What does ‘pester’ mean?”

The teenager said, “Look it up in the dictionary!”

Peter ran back to me.  Before he could ask a question, I asked, “Peter!  Do not tell me that you pestered your brother to find out what the word ‘pester’ means!  Did you?  And if your dictionary isn’t a weird one, all the words should be in alphabetical order.”

Peter only said, “Okay!” And he ran to his brother’s room, to pester him more.  “What’s a dictionary?”

The teenager said, “It’s the big black book in the bookcase in the living room.”  I heard fast moving feet as Peter ran and got a book from the bookcase.  He then went back to his brother’s room.

“Is this it?”  He showed his brother the complete works of William Shakespeare.

“No, Peter, it’s the big black book!  This isn’t it.”

More running to the living room and running back to his brother’s room.

The teenager said, “That’s it!  Now look up ‘pester’. P-E-S-T-E-R.”

Then some mumbling until they reached the beginning of the “P” section.  Then Peter started saying “Pester, pester.”

The teenager said, “No, Peter!  We are in ‘P-A’.  Let’s get to ‘P-E’ before we start looking for pester.”

Then their sister came out of a different room and said, “We’re not in PA!  We’re in Tennessee!”

Peter asked, “What?!”

She clarified, “We are not in Pennsylvania!  We’re in Tennessee.  We were in Pennsylvania a couple of months ago!”

By this time, Peter found ‘pester’ in the dictionary. “Annoy!  I know that word!  Now I know what pester means!”

The teenager yelled, “Peter!  You don’t just read one word and think you know what the word means.  Read the rest of the definition!”

“Nope!  I now know what pester means!  I’m done.”

The teenager said, “No, Peter, the rest of the definition is important.  ‘To annoy someone with frequent and persistent requests or interruptions!!’  That part is important!  Does it sound like anyone you know?!”

Peter said nothing.  He just left the room.

Peter’s mother walked in from work while we were all laughing about what just had happened, everyone except Peter.  In hearing the story, she laughed too, but when Peter’s Dad, my son, came in and heard the story, he said, “And I can guarantee that Peter still has no clue what ‘pester’ means, and I am confident he thinks he has never pestered anyone.”

Then it dawned on me.  I asked them, “Is there any significance that Peter and pester only differ by one letter?  A little ‘s’.  I hope it’s not a little red ‘s’.  In an old Skiles and Henderson routine, one of them says, ‘Keep your shirt buttoned, Clark!  No one wants to see your little red “s”!’ “

The teenager smiled, turned red and ran from the room. As everyone knows, teenagers cannot be seen laughing at jokes told by grandfathers.  Peter’s mother groaned.  Peter said, “Hunh?”

Raising an eight-year-old “know-it-all” is a tough job.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.